“When jobs are un­filled for too long, they are more likely to be per­ma­nently out­sourced to coun­tries with lower labour costs or a bet­ter­suited tal­ent pool”

ad­vanced economies will not have the gain­fully em­ployed in mean­ing­ful ca­reers.

Mean­while, the myth that soft skills are in­nate – and that only tech­ni­cal skills can be taught – con­tin­ues to fuel the skills gap. In re­al­ity, seem­ingly ab­stract traits like prob­lem­solv­ing abil­ity, work ethic, and self-aware­ness can be de­vel­oped in the right set­ting and with the right tools.

Many stu­dents can­not pin­point ex­actly which skills they lack, but they are acutely aware that they lack self-es­teem as a re­sult. Con­sider Abi, a stu­dent from Bos­ton who had dif­fi­cul­ties in her home life and once be­lieved she would never be suc­cess­ful.

Sim­ple men­tor­ing and train­ing pro­grammes car­ried out by Col­lege For Ev­ery Stu­dent (a non­profit or­gan­i­sa­tion funded by the GE Foun­da­tion) taught her es­sen­tial skills and boosted her con­fi­dence, set­ting in mo­tion a vir­tu­ous cy­cle of per­sonal de­vel­op­ment.

In­deed, the skills gap is even wider for young peo­ple from low-in­come house­holds, who largely miss out on ed­u­ca­tional